India defends fire wall between rich and poor countries

On the day that the BASIC countries came together to take the high moral ground against non-delivery of commitments by the developed world, India took on the rich countries for trying to put a Trojan horse to break the differentiation between developed and developing countries in the Warsaw decisions. Inside negotiating rooms India demanded that the decisions countries would take in 2015 for the new agreement should not be prejudged at the Polish capital.

Suggesting that decisions to break the differentiation between developed and developing countries were against the basic principles of the convention, India along with several allies in the developing world, including China fought a pitched battle that lasted till midnight on two successive days.

The battles took place over a draft of the decisions that the Warsaw meeting is to adopt by consensus by Friday night. The draft did not use the language of differentiation between developed and developing world and equate all countries asking all of them to work to reduce emissions, enhance their contribution to technology and financial provisions.

Under the convention only the developed countries are required to do so as of now. In Doha in 2012 it was agreed that the new climate compact to be signed by 2015 would also be guided by the principles of the existing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But the US has insisted overtly and its other partners worked behind closed doors to push that because the decisions of Doha talks apply to all they should also be applied equally to all – in other words similarly onerous regime should come in to place by 2015 for all countries.

India warned that the two-step process of putting emission pledges EU had pushed and found active support from South Africa would not sail and should not be pushed into the decisions of Warsaw. The two-step process that EU proposes that all countries first pledge their commitments and this is then reviewed to check if they add up to meet a global target. But India noted that the way it would practically work out the rich countries would be able to push their share of the burden on to the poor countries.

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